Hey Josh—we sent you an email from support@stripe.com a little bit ago. Once we figure that out we can get your account sorted. (Feel free to also CC me directly on your reply—edwin@stripe.com.) Sorry for the issues here.
This is as Western as our mainstream thinking (and cockiness) gets. You know, evidence can only come from a lab with a prescribed setup, inspected and certified by my outlandishly smart scientists. And oh until then umm can we -force- everybody to not use it? I’m African and many of the medicines I’ve consumed and been cured with are unproven according whatever criteria you’d use. Sometimes it has been administered by a shaman following family tradition.
It’s a sad state of affairs that somehow we’re certain we have discovered the single method of finding the single point truth and all other methods are wrong. Also considered certainly wrong is the idea that truth isn’t a point value but a spectrum and based on its utility to our short life, we lie peacefully in the spectrum or even out of it.
Generally speaking, antibiotics should be more controlled, to prevent breeding resistant bacteria. I.e., ensuring that the treatment is done in full.
You might want to look for bacteriophage treatment, which lacks many downsides (at the cost of needing matching like donor organs, and thus distribution infrastructure).
If people were serious about this then it would be highly restricted for livestock.
Some years ago I suffering extreme chills for many days. I had to beg doctor for a round.
She was mortified that I would want them.
Next step was full ER visit while on a business trip out of state. So no insurance.
Was fine after a few days.
This happens every so often. Each time is a nightmare getting a prescription despite history.
I know what I said at the top of the thread, but I’d pay handsomely to assume the risk for an off-label prescription for Hizentra. The only probable downside is it wouldn’t work.
Regulated drugs have killed, and will likely kill more than unregulated drugs, and with dangerous devastation because the usual skepticism that surrounds anything novel will be assuaged by the stamp of approval.
So, if we eventually decide to count death by regulated drugs (not counting death by the regulation process itself) we might not come to a happy conclusion that it has worked as expected.
With the current regulations in place, it's definitely possible that regulated drugs have killed more people than unregulated drugs.
Would that still be the case without any regulation? All the regulations do is ensure that products intended for pharmaceutical use have a certain level of evidence of safety and efficacy.
It doesn't mean that unregulated products are unsafe or do not have a positive effect on health, it just means that one cannot sell them or market them as something that can cure disease.
Keep in mind that even with this regulation in place, people still try to sell things like the MMS [0], which the FDA warns against consuming [1].
While regulation isn't perfect, in this case I'd argue that it's a net benefit, all things considered. It's not perfect, but it's better than having no regulation in place.
As someone who’s parents thought it would be a better idea to give them “natural” medicine growing up and leading to a lot of unnecessary suffering, I disagree with the idea that the onus should be on the user to prove the validity of the medicine.
If a medicine kills someone, who should the responsibility fall on?
I believe there is a place for letting people do what they want to their bodies, but it should only be done if the user is well informed of the risks, and is in sound mind to make an decision.
> If a medicine kills someone who should the responsibility fall on?
Medication, regulated or unregulated, is a risk the patient takes. I don’t think we’re optimizing for the right thing if the goal of regulation is to avoid death by medication. I’d rather die trying to cure my illness than die from inactivity/inability to try while the scientists go through the motions in the laboratory.
So to answer your question, we should empower patients to seek treatment, and live or die by their choices. Because it turns out no one cares about them more than they do. Also, this has been the law of the land in most African countries where natural/unlicensed medicine is heavily sought after, and no one is asking about who should be blamed for deaths during treatment.
And how can they be properly informed of the risks without empirical data from trials? Regulations exist to prevent malicious sellers from taking advantage of sick patients, who are making decisions under duress, about things way more complex than they can handle.
I realize it sounds paternalistic, and I can appreciate your point about giving people freedom to make the choice, but sometimes it’s not really a choice in the true sense you describe (no pressures from failing health; proper time to research everything; ability to weigh benefits and risks correctly).
> habd.as is being blocked by Cryptojacking, Goodbye Ads, notracking and oisd.
Then when I bypass that, I see this:
You're selling an herb as a medicinal cure that hasn't been tested by labs or gone through human trials, could:
* cause severe side effects to internal organs that aren't immediately visible on the outside
* cause bad alergic reactions in some people
* react badly with other medicines
* very well kill someone.
There's a reason that you have to go through a years (or even decades)-long process to get a medicine approved. You haven't even tried to go through that.
I'm not saying this substance did not work for you - it might very well have. But you're a sample size of one. You have no idea about potential side effects or risks.
Remember, just because something is "natural" doesn't mean it's safe.
So yeah. I totally understand why a payment processor cancelled your account. You could literally kill someone with this stuff.
Stripe reactivated my account already. I'll do everything I can to help get this miracle herb into the hands of Americans. If it was actually dangerous the FDA wouldn't have faltered when they tried to schedule it a few years ago. It wasn't a sample size of one that saw through their charade. Unfortunately most of that info is being erased from Twitter as we speak.
"Sale of a legal substance that provides the same effect as an illegal drug (e.g., salvia, kratom)"
If you argue against that definition, they provide a general catch-all for products that have are deemed illegal in certain jurisdictions:
"...products and services with varying legal status on a state-by-state basis; goods or services, the sale of which is illegal under applicable law in the jurisdictions to which your business is targeted or directed"
Kratom is illegal in several US states and in several countries:
Thanks for your comment. What I find most interesting isn't that Stripe tried to cancel my account (now reopened) but from where they got the information to make such a baseless decision in the first place.
Regarding the "controlled substance" bit, Stripe actually says Kratom mimics known drugs which is false (nature doesn't mimic synthetics). I brought this obvious error up with Stripe in my Twitter DM and I'd bet dollars to donuts they don't have a say about it nor the power to change their own terms due to Capitalist US regulations working hard to keep Big Pharma's thumb on our noses.
> I'd bet dollars to donuts they don't have a say about it nor the power to change their own terms
That's pretty clear given in their terms under the section titled, "Products or services that are otherwise restricted by our financial partners". Like most companies, they are beholden to their upstream providers.
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